challenging to compete with state-run energy giants that always come in first in terms of the number of licenses awarded. What might be most promising for Lukoil overseas is the shale sector, but this is also where most lucrative projects are already reserved, making it impossible for the Russian firm to make its entry. This is why the company has become a player in the offshore shelf, which is the second-largest mining segment. Speaking at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Vagit Alekperov considered West African regions and the Gulf Mexico strategic for his firm’s development. The Russian oil company has an appetite for traditional crude assets taken from companies that plan to sell them up in order to invest more in shale deposits in the United States and Canada. These are mainly ExxonMobil-owned Zafiro oilfield and gas projects. Owned jointly by U.S.
oil company ExxonMobil, Ocean Equatorial Guinea Corporation, and the government of Equatorial Guinea, the Zafiro oilfield is located in Equatorial Guinea. The country’s top source of oil, the deposit produces 90,000 barrels per day. Before, ExxonMobil was believed to have planned to sell up to $25 billion of oil and gas fields, including those in the African country of Equatorial Guinea. The country’s authorities hope to see a Russian firm buying the stakes. Other U.S.-based oil companies are also in talks to trade their African assets in Nigeria (Chevron) and Libya (Marathon Oil and Occidental Petroleum). Lukoil has operated in Africa since 1995. The company has assets in Ghana, Cameroon, the Republic of Congo, Nigeria, and Egypt. In 2018, Lukoil’s oil output in Egypt totaled 3 percent of the company’s entire production. In 2015, the gas firm kicked off a project in Mexico where it got a permit to drill in the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
30 January 2020
IS BULGARIA WEAK LINK IN RUSSIA’S TURKSTREAM GAS PIPELINE? One billion cubic meters of gas pumped in less than a month was what Gazprom has recently boasted about, meaning the TurkStream natural gas pipeline inaugurated earlier this year. Nonetheless, the project is not yet fully complete, while shipments have not been made to Hungary and Serbia. Bulgaria has not yet terminated its stretch of the gas pipeline. The situation is likely to deteriorate amid Sofia’s strained ties with Moscow, while Russian President Vladimir Putin even accused Bulgaria of delaying the building of the pipeline on its territory. Sofia, in turn, has emphasized its pursuit to diversify energy supplies and narrow down its reliance on Russian gas flows.
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ussian state energy company Gazprom said on January 28 that it had supplied its first billion cubic meters of gas via the TurkStream gas pipeline. While some 54 percent went to the Turkish gas market, the remaining 46 percent was carried to the
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Turkey-Bulgaria border. Gazprom CEO Alexey Miller said TurkStream deliveries fully cover all of the firm’s contracts with consumers in Bulgaria, Greece, and North Macedonia, and all deals have been delivered until now by the Trans-Balkan corridor. For his part, 21
